Start peace locally, group says

In the midst of the Iraq war, where casualties increase daily and approval for President Bush's troop increase continues to plummet (70 percent of Americans opposed as of January), peace may sound like a far-off destination.

Peace in the Middle East, however, can be reached by working toward it right at home. This was the message given during a community peace forum on Wednesday that brought together politicians, local leaders and religious figures.

Peace can't happen out of thin air, the Rev. Tom Goldsmith of First Unitarian Church said.

"It's not something that just happens — you can't just grab it out of a shelf. We need to spend time learning about it, so we can develop and cultivate it," Goldsmith said. "Then, we'll have something to work towards."

The panel at Westminster College was part of the National Community of Peace project, which recently designated Salt Lake County as a "Community of Peace" — the first city in the nation to receive that recognition.

Although no details about how to bring peace to Iraq were mentioned, the panel agreed that working toward peace began with each individual.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said the conflicts of the world will never be solved until each person has peace inside them.

"I believe that men are born good, and we don't come into this world as haters," Shurtleff said. "And we accept others until we start growing and pick up different biases."

To have biases puts people in conflict, something human nature tends to avoid, he said. Until we place ourselves in peace, we'll grow out of our prejudice and stereotypes, a negative side effect of the war in Iraq, he said.

Tarek Nosseir, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake, also said that "peace starts from within," adding that every morning he wakes up and asks himself how he can bring peace to both himself and those around him.

"There needs to be a grass-roots effort to re-engineer peace where it takes more than religious leaders and politicians to come together and try to do it by themselves," he said.

People are more similar than they are different, Utah Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert said. And by finding an end to conflict, peace can stand as another common ground between people.

"I think we're looking for a silver bullet to solve the problem," Herbert said. "Let peace begin with us."

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E-mail: abreton@desnews.com